Daily Beast: Switzerland to return funds frozen in money laundering case to Russians
The Swiss authorities will return millions of dollars of previously frozen funds to Russians in a money laundering case, the Daily Beast reports, citing court documents.
Local authorities have rejected an appeal to return frozen assets in a case related to the so-called Magnitsky case.
“It would be impossible to establish the existence of a criminal organisation <…> involved in all the transactions,” the court document said.
It is also stressed that sanctions have already been imposed against those to whom the finances will be returned.
In the summer of 2021 it was reported that the Swiss Prosecutor General’s Office had closed the investigation into the “Magnitsky case”. Arguments linking the country to the Russian tax fraud were not confirmed.
The US passed the “Magnitsky Act” in December 2012 to impose sanctions on Russians involved, according to US authorities, in human rights abuses. For its part, the Kremlin has repeatedly claimed that the Magnitsky case cannot be politicized. Later it was given the status of a global law: the sanctions should not be limited to Russian citizens, but should apply to all countries whose citizens, according to the U.S. authorities, violate human rights. Later, similar lists were introduced by a number of EU countries.